Flexibility needed on Wake school assignments

The dispute was not unexpected, and the positions of those on all sides of a complicated Wake County school assignment issue are understandable. To some degree, the points on both sides of the assignments to a new year-round middle school, Pine Hollow in northwest Raleigh, have been heard before.

But the Wake school board is due credit for listening to parents who have legitimate arguments for and against the assignment of their children.

The board’s guiding objective must be to listen to and adjust assignments for those parents based on schedule. That means assessing whether year-round would be a hardship for those with children at other schools on traditional calendars, and whether the assignment would create a time and transportation hardship for students.

Parents need to be mindful, however, that the county has to build new schools in locations reflecting growth, and the school board also has an obligation to include the year-round option for some schools, particularly when a new middle school is going to draw elementary students who have been on a year-round schedule.

In the case of Pine Hollow Middle School, opening in July, the year-round schedule reflects just that. To the degree it can, the board needs to accommodate parents who can make a case that a year-round assignment would wreak havoc with their schedules for other children.

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 5:13 AM with the headline "Flexibility needed on Wake school assignments."